Singer-lyricist Vineet Singh Hukmani’s latest will make you ‘pause, rewind, repeat’

Express News Service

Singer-songwriter Vineet Singh Hukmani’s latest track promises to release a dose of dopamine into your brain. The upbeat synth-pop song, titled ‘Turning back time’, hit the charts early this month and the number has already pressed the rewind button to the good times. What’s the premise of the song? Looking at the pictures of his past travels to some beautiful locales filled him with hope for the future. The track, which was born exactly from this ‘time travel’, taps into such positive memories—during a time when the future seems uncertain.

“We can willingly switch on our fabulous memories and use them to energise our present and future,” says Hukmani. The lyrics reflect a moment, person or situation locked in one’s memory. “It’s the kind of sweet peppy track that you can loop endlessly in your playlist while looking at your travel pics, or going for a drive with the memories for company,” elaborates Hukmani.

The song’s joyful feel is reflected in its imagery, which uses various symbols of time. Hukmani, who never shoots videos, says he only makes ‘mood’ videos with lyric subtitles, allowing listeners to feel the song’s mood rather than an intricate situation or story. The video of ‘Turning back time’ has images of people travelling back into their wonderful memories. Hukmani’s two earlier tracks, ‘Jab the world’ and ‘So new’, were recently included in the top 20 of the prestigious DRT Top 50 Rock Airplay charts.

The Delhi-based artist has been riding on the success wave since June. That was when he released ‘i Pray’ which hit the number one spot on the World Radio Charts. For his first hip-hop song, Hukmani received excellent online vocal coaching by American producer Sean Divine. The song has also been picked by the world’s best hip-hop radio stations, and listener feedback in the US, Germany and India have been promising. Hukmani is confident that in the weeks, it should show up in the mainstream charts alongside the best artists.

At one point, both his songs featured in the charts simultaneously—a rare feat for any global artist. ‘Jab the world’, a happy rock song, was launched on March 16—World Vaccination Day—the day Hukmani got his first shot. The track pays tribute to medical and other frontline fraternities. ‘So new’, a synth-rock song that was released on April 27, speaks to a listener’s inner child—one that yearns to feel new again. The two tracks followed Hukmani’s ‘Dreamin out loud’, in January and ‘Can I go now’ in February.

Being genre-agnostic like his musical idols, Hukmani is never tied down by any sound or genre. Contractually obligated with his global agent Martin Langford to release a song every 45 days, Hukmani’s pipeline is rich with fresh ideas. Currently, he is busy working on a ‘funk rock’ song, a bizarre love song, an offbeat Latino party song as well as a dreamy pop lead single for his year-end album launch. Hukmani’s 12 years as the former founder and CEO of 94.3 Radio One, India’s only international format radio network, taught him many valuable lessons about the power of global radio in the discovery of new music. Seeing a need for greater access to global opportunity, in January, he founded Greatsong.world, a platform that allows those creating original English music to get a foothold into world markets.